Lithia Motors’ high­est quar­ter­ly adjust­ed net income is based on new and used sales, ser­vice and parts per­for­mance as deal­ers focus on local geo­graph­i­cal areas.

Find out more about the com­po­nents in Lithia’s third quar­ter report.

Lithia Motors, Inc. (NYSE: LAD) today report­ed the high­est quar­ter­ly adjust­ed net income from con­tin­u­ing oper­a­tions in Com­pa­ny his­to­ry, and a 27% increase in adjust­ed net income per share from con­tin­u­ing oper­a­tions for the third quar­ter 2013 over the pri­or year peri­od.

Adjust­ed income from con­tin­u­ing oper­a­tions for the third quar­ter 2013 was $29.6 mil­lion, or $1.13 per dilut­ed share. This com­pares to 2012 third quar­ter income from con­tin­u­ing oper­a­tions of $23.1 mil­lion, or $0.89 per dilut­ed share.

Unad­just­ed net income from con­tin­u­ing oper­a­tions for the third quar­ter of 2013 was $30.9 mil­lion, or $1.18 per dilut­ed share. As shown in the attached non-GAAP rec­on­cil­i­a­tion tables, the 2013 third quar­ter adjust­ed results from con­tin­u­ing oper­a­tions exclude a $1.3 mil­lion ben­e­fit, or $0.05 per dilut­ed share, relat­ed to a non-core tax attribute. We did not have any adjust­ments to the 2012 third quar­ter results from con­tin­u­ing oper­a­tions.

Third quar­ter 2013 rev­enue from con­tin­u­ing oper­a­tions increased $190.8 mil­lion, or 22%, to $1.1 bil­lion from $878.5 mil­lion in the third quar­ter of 2012.

“Our stores deliv­ered anoth­er sol­id quar­ter of sales growth that out­paced the nation­al rate of recov­ery,” said Bryan DeBoer, Pres­i­dent and CEO. “How­ev­er, oppor­tu­ni­ties con­tin­ue to exist for our team to improve new and used vehi­cle sales vol­umes and new vehi­cle gross mar­gin lev­els. Our focus is on cap­tur­ing the ben­e­fit of addi­tion­al unit sales for future busi­ness — both through the sale of trade-in vehi­cles, incre­men­tal F&I income and the annu­ity val­ue of future ser­vice work on vehi­cles sold today.”

Chris Holzshu, SVP and CFO, said, “Adjust­ed SG&A expense as a per­cent­age of gross prof­it was a record low 65.6% in the quar­ter, and 66.8% for the first nine months of 2013. Our same store incre­men­tal through­put, or the per­cent­age of addi­tion­al gross prof­it we retain after sell­ing costs, was 41% in the third quar­ter. Our tar­get of 50% incre­men­tal through­put remains unchanged, and we believe it is achiev­able despite the short­fall in the quar­ter. Our stores remain focused on lever­ag­ing our cost struc­ture as we grow organ­i­cal­ly and through acqui­si­tions.”